Violence in Iraq Killed 703 in February, U.N. Reports

By The Associated Press

March 1, 2014

BAGHDAD — Violence across Iraq in February killed 703 people, a death toll higher than the same period a year before as the country faces a rising wave of militant attacks rivaling the sectarian bloodshed that followed the American-led invasion in 2003, the United Nations said Saturday.

The figures issued by the United Nations’ mission to Iraq is close to January’s death toll of 733, showing that a surge of violence that began 10 months ago with a government crackdown on a Sunni protest camp is not receding. Meanwhile, attacks on Saturday killed at least five people and wounded 14, the authorities said.

Attacks in February killed 564 civilians and 139 security force members, the United Nations said. The violence wounded 1,381, the vast majority civilians, it said. In February 2013, attacks killed 418 civilians and wounded 704.

The capital, Baghdad, was the worst affected with 239 people killed, according to the United Nations. Two predominantly Sunni provinces — central Salahuddin with 121 killed and northern Nineveh with 94 killed — followed.

The United Nations mission chief, Nickolay Mladenov, appealed to Iraqis to stop the violence.

“The political, social and religious leaders of Iraq have an urgent responsibility to come together in the face of the terrorist threat that the country is facing,” Mr. Mladenov said in a statement. “Only by working together can Iraqis address the causes of violence and build a democratic society in which rule of law is observed and human rights are protected.”

February’s numbers could be even worse than the United Nations reported, however, as it again excluded deaths from the fighting in Anbar Province, because of problems in verifying what it called the “status of those killed.” It did the same in January.

Fighters linked to Al Qaeda and their allies seized the city of Falluja and parts of the Anbar provincial capital, Ramadi, in late December after the authorities dismantled a protest camp. Like the camp in the northern Iraqi town of Hawija whose dismantlement in April set off violent clashes and the current upsurge in killing, the Anbar camp was established by Sunnis angry at what they consider to be second-class treatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government.

The government and its tribal allies are besieging rebel-held areas, with clashes reported daily.

Widespread chaos nearly tore the country apart after the American-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. The violence ebbed in 2008 after a series of joint American-Iraqi military offensives, a Shiite militia cease-fire and a Sunni revolt against Al Qaeda forces in Iraq.

But last year, Iraq recorded the highest death toll since the worst of the country’s sectarian bloodletting, according to the United Nations, with 8,868 people killed.

Meanwhile, attacks continued Saturday.

In the town of Tarmiya, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen in speeding cars attacked a checkpoint for pro-government, Sunni tribal militias, killing two and wounding four, a police officer said. The militias, called Awakening Councils, were first formed and financed by the American troops to help fight militant groups. They are the favorite targets for the insurgent groups.

Another group of gunmen attacked an army checkpoint outside Baghdad’s western outskirts of Abu Ghraib, killing two soldiers and wounding four, another police officer said. Inside Abu Ghraib, a bomb went off in an outdoor market, killing one civilian and wounding six, he added.